Here’s what happens when you say “no” to a full-body scan

The Transportation Security Administration is fond of releasing surveillance video when it suits its purpose, like to debunk this woman’s claim that she was separated from her child at a checkpoint.

Then again, some passengers come to the airport looking for trouble. The TSA would like us to believe that Meg McLain was one such air traveler.

When she was randomly selected to go through the full-body scanner in Fort Lauderdale yesterday, she refused both the scan and the “enhanced” pat-down. She told a horrifying tale of being yelled at, cuffed to a chair and then escorted back to the terminal by no less than a dozen police officers.

The TSA, in response, released footage that suggests none of that happened.

Its public statement on the incident is dispassionate and, at the same time, disingenuous.

We diligently review claims of improper conduct. But when inaccurate passenger accounts are made either via media outlets or on the blogs, TSA works to resolve them and present both sides of the story. In this case, TSA has made the decision to post the CCTV video of the incident online.

You can listen to her radio interview, and then you can view our airport CCTV footage. We’ll let you decide what really happened.

We’ll let you decide? Oh, that’s cute.

Here’s what I think most people will decide: McLain was scared. She didn’t want to be scanned and she didn’t want an enhanced pat-down. When you’re being yelled at and detained by uniformed officers, your brain is bathed in adrenalin, and two police officers become twelve. You’re not just detained, you’re cuffed.

I’m less worried about the details of McLain’s story — which certainly appear to be exaggerated — than what led to them.

This is the direct result of a bad policy. The government has no business giving anyone an enhanced pat-down or scanning their private parts. McLain was brave to resist.

It’s something we should all consider doing. It’s the only way the TSA will stop using these foolish strip-search machines.

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  • KKali

    Having just returned from Europe, during the trip I underwent one full body scan and one full pat down – one going and one coming home. No run of the mill walk-through for me. I’m an average-looking 50 year old woman, not threatening, not carrying. While the pat down was thorough, I didnt feel it was that invasive and I willingly pay the price to fly safely. My mother, at 72, has to go through a full pat down every time she flies due to her pacemaker and defibrilator. She has never once complained about twisting breasts or felt offended by TSA employees doing the pat down. While she may have been treated a bit harshly, her story and justification are lacking. Thousands of people go through the full body scanner and pat down each day. TSA employees have background checks, so no worries that a sex offender is enjoying his or her job too much. And that is what it is – a job that they must do, with rules written by others….

  • David Young

    Look, there’s lots of annoying things in life. Traffic, rude cashiers, toenail fungus. So add full body scans to the list. So what? Why do we need to be combative about every minor detail we don’t like. Scan my junk if want, I don’t give a toss. Jeez — who cares?

  • Ginny

    I watched the video and listened to her telephone conversation and she needs to get her story straight to match the video. This is life lady, get over it!

  • Ashley

    Can anyone tell me how the TSA screens minors? I am traveling tomorrow with my younger sister (age 16) and I certainly do not want someone looking at a semi-nude photo of her nor do I want some stranger groping her.

  • Kevin M

    I sit and sift through these comments and one thought keeps running through my head: Wake up, people!

    No, not the “Wake up, there are bad guys out to get us so we have to do whatever it takes” thought. It’s the “Wake up – the potentials for abuse (coupled with the already huge number of cases of abuse of EXISTING policies) practically guarantee something horrible happening – and repeatedly, only to be followed by an even more intrusive, invasive procedure that does (as with these scans) little or nothing to increase air safety.”

    To KKali, who notes the “background checks” TSA officers go through: if that’s the case, why have there been hundreds of cases of TSA employees being fired for wrongdoing, including sexual harassment, theft of items, timesheet falsification, being under the influence of alcohol on the job, sleeping on the job, and so forth? Apparently they aren’t checking too closely or the checks don’t weed out the problem people.

    If you don’t think that even the less-than-pristine images on a full-body scan won’t appeal to some sexual deviants, you just don’t understand what drives them. Sure, you can download far more explicit porn on the computer; but these are images of living, breathing people who are right there in front of you. You can make them stand in there an extra five seconds to get a better look. You can have them turn around. That’s a powerful appeal to a certain type of voyeuristic type, and you can bet your bottom dollar some of them will be working those machines. You can also bet that some of them will be closely scrutinizing the children.

    It’s not about “it’s only a little bit of radiation” or “it’s only a quick look that doesn’t show much” or “it’s just a short separation from your bags and nothing’s likely to happen.” It’s about being ordered to reveal yourself to a virtual strip-search for exercising your right to travel about the country (international flights being a different issue).

    As experts have already pointed out, these machines can’t detect anything inside your body. So once a suicide bomber is discovered (before or after the fact) with explosives shoved inside his rectum, or inside her vagina, the TSA will move to the next logical step: full-body x-rays that penetrate the entire body, or body cavity searches (your choice, at first).

    And when you refuse, and leave the airport, the day will soon be here that they consider that probable cause for a search warrant for your house, or worse, claim that you were headed back there and would destroy the evidence so theyir “probable cause” entitled them to a warrantless search.

    It’s coming. Be forewarned. Who’d have thought, fifteen years ago, that you’d actually have to virtually strip to get through security? Who’s have thought family members would be barred from meeting you at the airline gate? Who’d have thought you’d be banned from bringing a bottle of water with you to the plane?

    We haven’t seen anything near the worst yet.

  • http://thirtysomethinggrad.wordpress.com andi330

    Here’s my issue with this woman’s story. It’s not that I love full body scanners or enhanced pat downs. It’s not that she at best exaggerated and at worst lied about what happened to her. It’s that she should have expected it.

    That’s right. Because here’s the thing, whether she entered the airport planning on engaging in civil disobedience or not, when she refused both the scan and the pat down, that’s what she was doing, engaging in civil disobedience. And that’s fine, many great movements in this country have been started through acts of civil disobedience. It wasn’t violent, and it really didn’t hurt anyone, so I can’t be too upset about the act itself.

    But civil disobedience has consequences. Those consequences in this case include having to deal with a lot of security (because, reality check here, if you refuse to participate in a security measure you KNEW was a possibility when you bought your plane ticket, the security guards are going to be suspicious as to WHY you refuse to participate), and at best being escorted out and refused your seat or at worst being arrested. Those are the consequences, in this situation, of civil disobedience.

    The TSA guards don’t have the option of saying, “OH, it’s just you. Never mind, you don’t have to have the screening. No, that code that was printed on your boarding pass that says I have to do this to you…I can ignore that. Because you aren’t someone I think would be a terrorist. It’ll be fine, my supervisor will understand, go on through and get on your plane no problem.” No, they have regulations they have to follow, and I can guarantee that none of those officers plan on getting fired just because you don’t want to participate in a screening you KNEW was a possibility when you bought your plane ticket.

    So go ahead and participate in civil disobedience. But don’t be shocked when you are detained, and escorted from the airport and denied boarding. Those are the consequences of your actions.

    And if you were so upset when it happened that you aren’t sure of what exactly happened, don’t go on the radio claiming things happened to you that can be disputed by releasing a security tape. It does nothing for your cause if you are caught in a lie, whether that lie was intentional or not.

  • Patrick Harris

    Take the time to review TSA videos released. Note the number of people who seem to be wandering around aimlessly that appear to have two jobs. One talking with other TSA personnel who are also standing around not doing much. The other noticeable activity is snapping blue gloves on, strutting around and then taking them off. All this activity is taking place while the passenger line grows longer at the one conveyor belt. The full body scanner is rarely used? TSA women go on strike until someone finds a much better uniform for the lower part of your body. Your fat arses and bloated stomachs are particularly unattractive. Do only overweight people work for TSA? Give them exercise time instead of standing around looking bored, mean and unappreciated. I bet the job is so boring and unrewarding they “look” starts within hours of the actual job starting. The reason TSA will not release information on actual bombs being found is that they rarely if ever find them before they explode.

  • Gordon Mano

    I have Alaska Airlines to thank for helping me avoid going through those damn full-body scanners. Here’s how I did it.

    Last month I booked a $400 round trip flight in December from Seattle to Los Angeles, both airports that employ full-body scanning. After reading today’s Elliott blog on full-body scanners, after some discussion my wife and I decided that we would refuse to go through them. We simply will not tolerate the invasion of our privacy.

    Then I called Alaska Airlines to explain that we intended to abandon our nonrefundable tickets because of our refusal to submit to the full-body scanning. Without being asked to do so, the Alaska Airlines agent created new routing for us departing from airports that do NOT [yet] employ full-body scanning on both legs of our trip. Furthermore, she did NOT charge us the usual “change fee,” instead only charging us a small amount that reflected the increase in the ticket price.

    Alaska Airlines deserves recognition for going out if its way to help revise my itinerary, without charging me a change fee. Alaska’s action shows that the airline realizes that opposition to full-body scanners is a valid reason to change an itinerary without cost to the traveller.

    As an aside, I requested that the agent inform her management that neither my family nor I will ever submit to a full-body scan, and that we will stop flying on Alaska Airlines or any other commercial aircraft when full-body scans become a prerequisite to boarding a flight.

  • Peter

    I’m hearing increasingly disturbing information about numerous cases of women and children receiving “enhanced” patdowns involving genital touching and breast manipulation, by MALE TSA agents. This is so far beyond acceptable that I can understand if any angry spouse or parent “loses it”.

    There are also recent articles quoting UC and Columbia University faculty with concerns about the radiation dosages associated with the xray scanners. Remember, this is the same government that said the air in NYC was safe to breathe after 9/11.

  • KG

    She was right to at least refuse the machine. They shouldn’t be doing that to people; if you just travel every so often, then maybe the radiation could be seen as negligible. But if you travel a lot, such as I used to and my husband still does for work, that’s a lot of radiation hitting your body, and it’s even pretty useless because it can’t see enough to be “effective” anyways. These machines are stupid, irresponsible, and horrible. I don’t want my husband to develop cancer because it was an additional hazard of his job that he has no choice over.

    It creates longer lines, and it panics customers, such as the woman above. The TSA has again gone beyond a normal safety measure, and is making flying an unnecessary ordeal. Keep people safe, but find a better way to do it, and find better employees to implement it.

  • Shari

    I’ll say it again: I don’t understand why we aren’t going with chemical detectors. I suppose it’s a matter of ignorance; the TSA doesn’t push them like it does the backscatter machines, and the chemical puffers don’t create the negative press that the backscatter machines do. But we already have airports that are running the chemical sensors, and they’re not bad. I’ve been through them several times, and I’d much rather go through them than a backscatter machine.

    Some links for edification:
    http://www.sandia.gov/mission/homeland/solutions/borders/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosives_trace-detection_portal_machine

  • Marc

    Chris – Love your blog, but what is with the anti-TSA rhetoric lately? I – for one – would much rather the shoe bomber and th underwear bomber never make it onto my plane, than to leave to hope that they can’t properly light their shorts on fire while their sitting four rows ahead of me. Is this really much different from getting fitted for a suit by a tailor? These are the times we live in, there are people in the world who want to hurt us. If it’s a choice between getting a pat down versus watching how lives are torn from an explosion on a passenger jet, you can pat me down twice.

  • EricR

    @Marc – the shoe bomber and underwear bomber wouldn’t have been caught by current TSA procedures. The TSA has admitted as much publicly. The backscatter scan and enhanced pat-downs are pure theatre, and a violation of the 4th Amendment which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Why aren’t buses and trains being blown up all over America? There’s no TSA to protect *those* modes of transportation! Just goes to show you how unnecessary the TSA is. They don’t make you safer.

  • Dang

    I travel extensively to Europe, Asia and USA. I noticed there is a big difference in the attitude of the TSA agents v/s their colleagues in Europe and Asia. The american TSA agents like to play the sheriff power trip attitude. Next time when passing to Geneva, Zurich, Tokyo Narita or Incheon Seoul, Bangkok… try to examine how there are respectful and efficient. Myself, I dont mind to go Asia via USA because UNITED offers the best fare and plenty of choice of routing but most Canadians avoid transiting via USA because of TSA and Immigration procedures. Air Canada, EVA profit a lot from that and their load-factors are very high.

  • KLH

    Some ideas about opting out. If they want security theater, give them theater.

    http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150091057558529

    Perhaps we should encourage video of the shows being presented and collect them somewhere.

  • http://nmdfreelance.com Nancy

    Like Dang, I see a huge difference with regard to the security personnel at foreign airports versus US airports.

    Here in the US, they are surly and you can tell they’re all pitbulls on the end of a taught chain waiting for the weak link to break.

    In Europe, at least the few I came in contact with, they were apologetic, they were kind and they treated us with dignity.

    I now know why we’re called “ugly Americans”.

  • Proud Canadian

    Part 1/2

    I can’t help but contrast this with my experience passing through a Canadian airport on Saturday.

    This airport (thank you very much America) has the child-porn machines. The person at the front of the queue stands on a mat, which lights an arrow. If the arrow points left, you get the pervert machine. If the arrow points right, regular ‘non-perv’ screening. My arrow pointed to the left.

    So, after being cleared through the metal detector, I approach the Canadian agent and open with a firm but polite “I am not going in that damn machine”.

    “That damn machine?” says the agent, nice and polite like we in Canada demand our public employees be.

    “That damn machine”, says I. ” Unless you show me the image first, I’ll take the enhanced pat down, let’s go”

    “Sure, come on around” – At this point, I can’t believe it – he’s going to SHOW ME THE IMAGE? What he does, in fact, show me is the control panel that they use.

    By this time, our little chat has attracted the attention of a supervisor. (We just call them supervisors, as they work for us. They don’t get fancy acronyms and toy badges to play with).

    The screener (see, just a screener, not some fake ‘officer’) asked the supervisor if he could show me the image, as I didn’t want to go through the machine. No, he can’t see the image says the supervisor.

  • Proud Canadian

    Part 2/2

    By this time, our little chat has attracted the attention of a supervisor. (We just call them supervisors, as they work for us. They don’t get fancy acronyms and toy badges to play with).

    The screener (see, just a screener, not some fake ‘officer’) asked the supervisor if he could show me the image, as I didn’t want to go through the machine. No, he can’t see the image says the supervisor.

    So my man the screener tries a few efforts to tell me it’s safe, and actually admitted that the IMAGES THE MACHINES ORIGINALLY DISPLAYED WERE TOO DETAILED and the MACHINEs HAVE BEEN ARTIFICIALLY REDUCED IN RESOLUTION. (At least here in Canada – god knows how much juice they are sending through you poor sods) So TSA, love to year your SPIN on that INCONVENIENT TRUTH

    Anyway, Mr Screener kept trying to convince me to give it a whirl, and I kept politely insisting on the enhanced pat down. All the while Mr. Supervisor is saying “just give him the pat down” to no effect. All very polite and pleasant, and I was hoping that the innocent travelers behind me were taking note of this, and hopefully will begin to question our capitulation to our scared neighbours to the south themselves.

    So, eventually I got my enhanced pat-down, politely and relatively noninvasive, all the while the screener was saying how he understood my objections and didn’t personally agree with the security theater either. In fact, I don’t think he was very happy having to touch my junk. But c’est la vie.

    Wish I got to see the images though.

  • Carolo

    They guy shows up with his camera running because he planned all this. Of course the film will help stiffen up his lawsuit that HIS rights were violated. To heck with everyone elses rights who would like to arrive at their destination safetly. Can’t believe a 31 yr old man would be such a weanie at taking an xray.

  • kmk

    my dad died in the world trade center on 9/11, he worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. i was working in the WTC (tower 2) in 1993 when they first bombed the WTC. I am 100% against the full body scanners and the new pat down. I have young children and if anyone touches my children or takes pictures of them nude, even TSA agents i will sue. i will do what I have to, my children come first. So don’t any one of you try the terrorism card on me.

  • Idisagree.

    Alot of you are saying big deal, just go thru the scanner and deal with it.. Or don’t fly…

    The scanner, is like 70 xrays of your chest..
    I’m going to disney world in a couple of months.. and im not going thru the scanner, im going to get a pat down, because i’d rather have some random person pat me down, then get cancer…

  • Anonymous

    Right on all counts, Ryan. **No** terrorists have been caught by TSA. The Times Square bomber was spotted by street vendors, the shoe bomber was jumped by passengers, as was the underwear bomber. The full body scanners are easy to defeat once you know how they work. That’s why NO OTHER COUNTRY uses them. Catering/cleaning personnel routinely evade screening. Air freight is largely unscreened (something confirmed by the GAO). And yes, the security checkpoint itself is a target-rich environment for a suicide bomber. TSA is **not** keeping anyone safe. People who believe otherwise are being played for suckers. 

  • Anonymous

    Right on all counts, Ryan. **No** terrorists have been caught by TSA. The Times Square bomber was spotted by street vendors, the shoe bomber was jumped by passengers, as was the underwear bomber. The full body scanners are easy to defeat once you know how they work. That’s why NO OTHER COUNTRY uses them. Catering/cleaning personnel routinely evade screening. Air freight is largely unscreened (something confirmed by the GAO). And yes, the security checkpoint itself is a target-rich environment for a suicide bomber. TSA is **not** keeping anyone safe. People who believe otherwise are being played for suckers. 

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